While Archos hasn’t quite successfully entered the smartphone space yet, the company is still hard at work in the Internet tablet space. Already having released a personal music player (PMP) and tablet combo based on Android that will also multipurpose itself as a personal DVR with the right dock accessory, Archos is readying the next generation model of those tablets. This time, the range will broaden out to include screen sizes between 3 and 10 inches. The tablets will be powered by an ARM Cortex chipset with the lower models clocking in at 800 MHz and topping out at 1 GHz at the end. These tablets will also be fully compatible with OpenGL and support multitouch.

The smaller screened tablets in Archos’ range could compete with many smartphones for those users who do not want to pay a monthly data contract or find themselves mostly near an open WiFi hotspot.

Archos’ tablets make for a compelling choice as Archos has added support for many video and audio codecs, extending the devices’ compatibility with many multimedia formats. Additionally, Archos has in the past made docking accessories for TV-out functionality as well as a DVR dock that will allow the device to record popular shows from TV and cable sources. Current Internet tablet from the Archos lineup range from solid state storage to hard disk drives, offering up to 500 GB of storage. The HDD options are a bit bulkier than the flash memory offerings. Current Android offerings are available in 5- and 7-inch formats with a 9-inch option that runs Windows 7.